Strategy Guides/Fungus
The following are strategies for the Fungus plague type. Please feel free to add your own strategies, tips, and Q&A here: NO GENES MEGA BRUTAL (Skip this if you're looking for actual strategies) Fungus Mega Brutal without Genetic Code is known as the hardest challenge of all non-scenario levels. This is a relatively available and stable way to win this crazy challenge. There surely is room for improvement, but I'm lazy (lol), so if you have discovered a better way, feel free to edit. Genetic Code: * NONE * NONE * NONE * NONE * NONE Allow all mutations. And do everything as fast as possible (try pausing the game more often), so that you can suffer less from genetic drift. # Start in Saudi Arabia # Evolve a Spore Burst immediately. # Evolve Bird 1 and 2, Air 1 and 2, Water 1 and 2 once you have the DNA points. This can take extremely long. Evolve Bird first, but if Filter events happen, deal with that first. # Evolve Cold Resistance 1 and 2. # Evolve Drug Resistance 1 and 2. # Evolve Coughing -> Pneumonia -> Pulmonary Fibrosis -> Total Organ Failure, OR Rash -> Sweating -> Skin Lesions -> Necrosis -> Hemorrhagic Shock. Choose a path according to existing mutations. If neither Coughing or Rash has mutated, just pick a random one. # Most islands are still healthy now, as well as South America. # Evolve Genetic Hardening 1 and 2, # Evolve Insomnia and Paranoia. If Hyper sensitivity has mutated, evolve Paralysis instead. From now on, whenever Cure Progress reaches 95%, use Seizures -> Insanity / Coma / Genetic ReShuffle 1 to save yourself. # Wait for genetic drift to go down, and there are no more than 10 uninfected countries. Now evolve all Spore Bursts in the upper circle. WARNING: WHENEVER YOU EVOLVE A SPORE BURST, COLLECT THE RED BUBBLE BEFORE EVOLVING ANOTHER. Otherwise the second spore may hit the same country and you're doomed. # Evolve Spore Eruption. # If any country is still healthy, evolve some Spore Bursts in the lower circle. # Due to Mega Brutal mechanic (Cure Progress still increases at a minimum speed even when all countries have gone anarchy), you might still lose even after the whole world is infected... # Good luck! Estimated Success Rate: 40% Strategy 1 A neat trick to use is to take the genes Metabolic Jump, (Any Infectious Gene), Patho-Stasis, Extremophile, and Genetic Mimic. #Get the symptoms Rash,Sweating, Skin Lesions, Coughing, and Sneezing. #Now go buy a Spore Burst. Get the DNA from the Biohazard bubbles, then get as many Spore Bursts as you can, including the Eruptions and Spore Hardening. #Keep popping the Biohazard bubbles as you go until you max out the Spore Burst tree. By now, you should have at least 50+ DNA. #Use these to evolve what you need to evolve to completely infect your starting country (For example, a rich urban country with a hot climate. A humid climate means one must evolve Drug Resistance 1, Rodent 1, Insect 1, and Water 1. Once you have your starting country fully infected, play as you normally would. Nobody should notice your plague if you didn't let any mutations take over, as you need a decent amount of Severity and Lethality to be noticed. Think of this as a stronger ATP Boost gene because that, in essence, is what it is. Strategy 2 :This strategy no longer works on IOS and newest androids, as you can no longer devolve spore bursts/eruptions. Follow this method if you don't mind devolving and re-evolving repeatedly this does work: #You must have these genes equipped: Patho-Stasis & Metabolic Hijack. #Start out in an urban area. #Evolve, devolve & re-evolve the LOWER Spore Burst ability repeatedly ( You'll see a 1 point profit every time you do so). This exploit doesn't seem to work anymore. It now gives a one point loss each time. However, you can still use it to infect more countries, although it doesn't seem to infect island countries that have all of their ports closed. #Once you're happy with your DNA points, evolve whatever you want (transmissions recommended) then evolve ALL of the spore abilities in one go. #Sit back and watch the screen become filled with red biohazard bubbles. Strategy 3 This strategy does not work on Plague Inc: Evolved (Normal and above) as the cure is detected, #Start in China. Evolve these symptoms: Cysts, Hyper sensitivity, and Abscesses, and immediately devolve any other symptoms that mutate. Transmissions: Bird 1 and Water 1. Abilities: Drug Resistance 1 and Cold Resistance 1. # Transmissions: Air 1 and Livestock 1. Symptoms: Keep devolving any mutated symptoms immediately. Abilities: Heat Resistance 1. # Once your plague has infected around 500-600 million people worldwide, devolve all symptoms to keep your plague unknown to the world. Start banking points for the final phase. Transmissions: Bird 2 and Blood 1. Symptoms: Keep devolving any mutated symptoms immediately. Abilities: Cold Resistance 2 and Genetic Hardening 1. # Most of the countries should start to be infected, but the plague is still unknown if you keep devolving mutated symptoms immediately. Save your points and let the infection spread. # Everyone on the planet is probably infected and you're ready to kill them by evolving Coughing, Sneezing, Immune Suppression . #If Cure went up to 50%, try to devolve any Transmission and devolve any Symptoms that not lethal, use that DNA you got by evolving any Symptoms that have extreme severity and lethal. Strategy 4 This is a strategy for those who are gunning for maximum Biohazard, where it's in speedrun, scenario, or normal gameplay: Recommended genes: Patho-Stasis Extremophile Aerocyte Darwinist ATP Boost # Before you start anywhere, evolve Bird 1. This is similar to Air 1. # Start in Saudi Arabia, the Primary Plague Starting Point, in my opinion. # Evolve your first Spore Burst, and collect the DNA points. Evolve Spore Bursts as soon as you can, maximizing the amount of total coverage. If you're lucky, you'll end up in Greenland. # Don't evolve Spore Eruption right after you evolve a Spore Burst. Presumably, this can counter the effects of the Spore Eruption. # Evolve the Spore Eruptions (1 at a time) after you've evolved all the Spore Bursts. Once both Spore Eruptions have been evolve, evolve Spore Hardening. # Evolve Air 1, and then evolve Cold Resistance 1 and Drug Resistance 1. Even if you haven't infected any cold countries, you've likely infected a rich country or two, usually including the USA. # Evolve Water 1 to increase chances of infecting island countries. # Evolve Coughing, Rash, Sweating, Sneezing, and Skin Lesions. This will increase infectivity, but may cause early detection. Depending on the difficulty level, there may be little response or no response at all. # Evolve Blood 1 and Insect 1. This can serve as the base of a useful transmission combo. # Allow symptoms to mutate, unless they are lethal on their own or as part of a symptom combo (a prime example is the Profuse Bleeding symptom combo). That would cause the uninfected countries to shut your disease out. Evolve Water 2, and Cold Resistance 2. Whether or not you've made it to Greenland, don't let Iceland hold you up. # Once all countries are infected, allow symptoms to mutate at will. Necrosis is a prime favorite of mine. # Evolve Genetic Hardening 1, and evolve Genetic ReShuffle 1 if you believe the cure effort's getting too far along. # If Greenland shuts you out before you get to it, evolve Blood 2, Insect 2, and Extreme Hematophagy. There's a chance that a Contaminated Package (unlocked by evolving Extreme Hematophagy) will spontaneously infect Greenland for you. # Evolve all symptoms you can. If you're lucky, you'll get a symptom combo that will increase your infectivity, slow down the cure effort, increase lethality, or even all of the above. # Watch as the world burns. Congratulations. You've destroyed the world. DiseaseMaster7 Strategy 5 This is a simple strategy which will work on Casual, Normal or Brutal (This doesn't work on Mega Brutal because the 'random medical check-ups' make the disease noticed and a cure is available before everyone is infected. Genetic Code DNA Gene: ATP Boost or Metabolic Jump Travel Gene: Aquacyte or Suppression Evolution Gene: Ionised Helix Mutation Gene: Genetic Mimic Environment Gene: Extremophile... or anything really Stage 1: Begin Step 1. Start anywhere... the best places are India, Saudi Arabia, Greenland, Egypt, Madagascar or even Norway! Step 2. Fastforward TIP: If any symptoms evolve DEVOVLE THEM IMMEDIATELY!!! Doctors will spot the disease and the Cure Research will begin. In the future the cure research will be too much! Stage 2: Infection Step 3. Evolve Air 1 and Water 1 Step 4. Evolve Cold Resistance 1 or Heat Resistance 1; the opposite climate of your starting country. (e.g. if you started in Egypt you would evolve Cold Resistance 1). You should be gaining DNA Points by now. Make sure you save them up for later though! Step 5. Evolve Air 2 and Water 2. Step 6. Evolve Insect 1 and Extreme Bioaerosol. Step 7. (Optional) If iceland or Greenland is infected but not progressing, get cold 2 Your disease should be spreading like mad now. When you get the message 'No more healthy people left in the world', you know it's time! Stage 3: Kill Step 7. Devolve all Transmissions for extra DNA Points Step 8. Evolve the following in order: *Coughing *Pneumonia *Pulmonary Fibrosis *Total Organ Failure *Insomnia *Paranoia *Evolve Coma *Devolve Insomnia You should've had enough for all of those because if you popped all the red and orange bubbles and devolved all symptoms you should have at least twice the amount you needed. Paranoia is the most important as people won't want to go and see the doctor. Step 9. Evolve Genetic Hardening 1, Genetic ReShuffle 1 and Genetic Hardening 2 Step 10. Evolve *Anaemia *Haemophilia *Internal Haemorrhaging *Hemorrhagic Shock Watch as the last few people hopelessly die. Watch as the screen with the words 'Victory! *your disease name here* has successfully eliminated all life on earth. THIS STRATEGY WORKS ON EVERY DIFFICULTY EXCEPT MEGA-BRUTAL (as mentioned earlier) This strategy was made by Terra Verso Tips *The 3rd strategy really worked well for me. But I used Egypt at the start and upgraded Insect instead of Bird. - Strategy 6 Recommended genes: Patho-Stasis ATP Boost Metabolic Hijack Evolve all of the spore bursts and spore eruptions, and spore hardening, then get air and water 1 and 2. Also add drug resistance 1 and Cold resistance 1, and save up DNA. If a symptom mutates, devolve it. Finally, when the entire world is infected, evolve a bunch of symptoms. Devolve transmissions for DNA points. Strategy 7 Recommended genes: Darwinist Ionised Helix(if casual or normal) Translesion+(if brutal or mega-brutal). Start in Russia. Get cold resistance 1, drug resistance 1, and the animal transmissions(bird, livestock, and rodent). Do NOT get the spore bursts. Wait for the entire world to be infected. If a symptom mutates, devolve it immediately for DNA points. When the entire world is infected, you can get a bunch of symptoms. If you are waiting for a country to get infected, or you get noticed and an island country closes its ports and stays healthy, you can get a spore burst to infect it. Then kill the world with a bunch of symptoms when there are no healthy people left. Strategy 8 (For Mega Brutal) This is more of a general strategy/tips guide on how to beat it on Mega Brutal. This is NOT a complete step by step tutorial. Since Fungus is slow to infect, this general strategy will utilize Spore Bursting, along with some genes, to drastically help improve the speed of which the world is infected. Recommended Genes: *Metabolic Jump (Absolutely required) *Base Oxidisation OR Genetic Mimic *Teracyte *Xerophile *Patho-Stasis (Absolutely required) Since Fungus has a hard time spreading across land and in arid environments, Teracyte and Xerophile will help balance it out. I won with Base Oxidisation, but due to the randomness of mutations and faster cure speed, Genetic Mimic allows more consistent results if trial-and-error is used. Start in Saudi Arabia. This is absolutely required as it has access to all airports and gives a heat bonus. Start to evolve ONE of the Spore Burst trees as soon as you can. Do not evolve Spore Eruption. The extra infected countries should give you some extra DNA. Due to the randomness of Spore Burst infectivity, the next sections are dealt with as priorities instead of steps. First Priority Evolutions Under Transmissions, evolve the Air 1 and the Bird Tree as soon as you can. Air 2 can also be obtained if the DNA stock is well managed. These will further help increase the speed of which the fungus spreads. Under Symptoms, evolve Coughing and Rashes to increase general infectivity. Depending on how soon your fungus gets discovered, evolve Sweating and Pneumonia as well to increase the bonus in cold countries. Under Abilities, Cold Resistance 1 and Drug Resistance 1 should be developed first. Depending on which countries you have infected, Cold Resistance 2 should also be developed, especially in a country like Greenland, Iceland or Russia. These should take priority over symptoms because the fungus will be severely limited in cold/rich countries if you infect them early on. Second Priority Evolutions When the first wave of countries starts to rapidly increase in its infected count, and especially if a country like India or China does, the second Spore Burst tree should get unlocked. Again, do not unlock either Spore Eruption. This will create another surplus of DNA. On top of that, countries should start to get infected independently if they haven't already, so watch for exactly the right time to unleash the second set of bursts. Under Transmissions, Air 2 should be evolved if it wasn't already. Water 1 should be evolved, and Water 2 as well if the DNA stock is managed well. This will allow the fungus to spread via boat, which will help infect island countries. Only Water 1 is required, but the game may be slower. Under Symptoms, Skin Lesions and Sneezing should get evolved. This will increase general infectivity, severity, and open up the path to Necrosis. Should help with extra DNA gain from infecting more people. Under Abilities, Genetic Hardening 1 and 2 are top priority at this point. Depending on which countries are struggling, Drug Resistance 2 OR Heat Resistance 1 should be evolved. At this point, the disease will get spotted if it hasn't been spotted already. If an "awareness day" occurs, or a blood test gets the disease spotted before most of the first priority evolutions have been attained, the Cure Progress will speed up too much before late game. It's important to watch how quickly the world is getting infected and to time your evolutions carefully to manage DNA. Otherwise, you could get stalled too long waiting for extra DNA. On top of this, genetic drift and other gameplay variations might change specific playthroughs, forcing players to consolidate DNA points for top priority evolutions or to use different bonuses to counteract events. Third Priority Evolutions After some time, infectivity should have increased enough to allow the usage of the Spore Eruptions and Spore Hardening abilities. Time it correctly so that they get most, if not all, of the remaining countries before the infected count skyrockets above 2 or 3 billion. This will also give an extra surplus of DNA. Under Transmissions, if the remaining countries are not being infected fast enough, evolve Extreme Bioaerosol. Otherwise, do not evolve anything. Under Symptoms, Pulmonary Oedema and/or Pulmonary Fibrosis should be attained to kickstart the lethality, while balancing it with infectivity. DNA management and timing is of the essence as doing it too soon will significantly increase the cure speed and leave you with little DNA gain. Once again, when enough DNA is attained and enough of the population is infected, evolve Necrosis. This should kickstart DNA gain from the death toll. Under Abilities, nothing needs to be evolved until the cure progress reaches 75% or more. When it does, evolve only Genetic Reshuffle 1. Wait until it's 75% again, and repeat. Do not bother with cure reducing symptoms unless they mutate as the payoff is not significant enough and the Genetic Drift + Costs Increase will make it very costly on DNA. If everything works out, the world should be dead before cure research is completed. If there's a surplus of DNA, consider evolving Hemorrhagic Shock to increase the death rate. Mutation Notes *Do not rely on mutation. The aggressive speed required to beat the fungus on Mega-Brutal, combined with the average rate of mutations occuring, means that mutations can only be helpful, not required, in any strategy. *If Base Oxidisation is used, it's very likely more transmissions will mutate. If this happens in the early game, it's possible some symptoms like Sneezing won't need to be evolved. **If an excessive amount of transmissions mutate (very unlikely, but it could happen), consider going for Total Organ Failure via Pulmonary Fibrosis. This should only be used if Level 3 Transmissions mutate on their own and the world is infected very quickly. *Devolve Insomnia if it mutates early on. The severity will cause more countries to start research too early. Insomnia should only be used once severity makes more countries research a cure. *If low level symptoms (besides Insomnia) mutate after cure research begins, do not devolve them. If lethal symptoms mutate, devolve them unless the increased lethality does not pose a problem. If it doesn't slow the infected rates too much, it can only help with killing them. Mini-Strategies * First, buy a spore to double the growth of the plague. Second, do as you do to bacteria until only some hard-to-reach countries were left uninfected. Third, buy spores equal to the number of those uninfected countries. Be careful and always devolve the mutated symptoms. Last, save DNA points and rocks! - * Keep the spores and stay patient until you infected all the word except a few nasty countries, like Greenland. Use the spore to get it. Then wait. Never buy symptoms before the final attack because fungi infects slowly, and you'll get spotted. When you infected everyone, use Total Organ Failure to end. Armorchompy Q&A There may be multiple answers to these questions: *Anyway to beat brutal without gene modifications? - Bashinthegreat **Start in Norway and get Drug Resistance 1 and then stay quiet and save all the points. Use it once the world is fully infected and get Total Organ Failure and watch the world die. - Category:Strategy